


No One Could Save Me But...

by Josies



Series: No Saints Without Sinners [16]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, One Shot, Post-SR2/Pre-SR3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-29 11:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15072134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josies/pseuds/Josies
Summary: "It's you," he finally says. "You keep dying and there's nothin' I can do about it."





	No One Could Save Me But...

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the mood for some dumbasses trying their damn hardest to not be in love. They're so stupid. I haven't had much time to write for fun lately, but I'm still very much in love with Saints Row, so I'll publish new stuff whenever I can. orz

 

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**March 2010**

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Johnny wakes to a cold sweat from a nightmare, his heart in his throat and his pulse thrumming in his ears. Blinking his eyes, it takes him a few seconds to recognize the blurry room around him, and once he does, he quickly looks to his left to make sure she's still there; the Boss sleeps soundly on the other side of the bed with her back turned to him. A sheet covers parts of her bare body. He studies her tattoos for a moment, long enough to get himself anchored back to the real world. His heart refuses to calm down, though, slamming against his ribs, as if trying to break free of him. He flings his legs over the edge and sits up, only to double over and run his fingers through his damp hair.

Ever since Aisha died, nightmares have been a kind of a frequent thing. It's been roughly a year. In his dreams he fails to save her life over, and over, and over again, and he accepts being plagued by them, because he's firmly set on believing it's the least he deserves for what he did, or didn't do.

But lately, his nightmares have all been about Doris. She keeps dying in them. And they're getting worse. They've begun to affect the hours he spends awake; how he acts around her, how he sees potential threats everywhere, in everyone and everything. He sees danger where there's none. He pulls the trigger quicker and instinctively shields her body with his own. She hasn't given him any annoyed looks or comments yet, so he figures she hasn't noticed anything out of ordinary in his behavior. If he doesn't pull himself together soon, though, he's in for an ass-kicking and a long, furious rant about how she doesn't need a white knight saving her. He can already hear her angry voice slipping from English to Spanish in the middle of a sentence. She does that when she's so utterly done with a person or a situation that she can only find words for her displeasure in her native language. It breaks him out of his stoic demeanor every time, making him smile, and that always makes her flip her shit. He loves not knowing when she might snap for good and attempt to murder him. It's intriguing.

As he straightens up with a deep sigh, Doris stirs half-awake behind him. She rolls over to snuggle back to his side to steal his warmth, but her hands reach for air. She opens her eyes, blinking in the dark.

"Johnny?" She mumbles in a raspy voice. Vodka always leaves her mouth dry. Partying with the Russians on a Sunday may not have been the brightest of ideas, but she won't bother regretting it until she's slouched over the kitchen table in the morning, cursing the coffee for making her headache worse, and pushing away the plate of eggs Johnny keeps sliding back in front of her. He's going to tell her to stop being a little brat, and she's going to slap his ass and order him to refill her cup like the good housewife he is.

"Yeah?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothin'. Go back to sleep."

She watches him for a while, quiet, waiting for her eyes to get accustomed to the dark. Johnny's not exactly good at sleeping. Either he wakes after four to five hours of sleep — six hours is probably the longest the man has slept in years — with the need to get up and get shit done, or he wakes disturbed by nightmares. He never really talks about them, but by now she's mastered the art of differentiating Johnny's frowns. It's in the way his eyes narrow, how hard he bites his teeth together, the number of creases on his forehead, and whether his shoulders are tense, or slightly slouching. She can often guess which one of the usual reasons has him awake at ungodly hours just by looking at his face and posture.

Doris crawls to the other side of the bed, dragging the sheet with her. She leans her body against his back and wraps her arms loosely around him. "You're sweaty," she says softly into his shoulder.

"It's hot in here."

"It's not."

"Yeah."

She glances at his face through a mirror on the wall across the room. He stares down at his hands. She glides her cold fingers on his skin and stops them in the middle of his chest, right over his heart, trying to feel his pulse. "I had nightmares last night. Like, three different ones. Kept waking me up." She waits for him to say something, but he doesn't. "Was it about Aisha again?"

"No."

"You wanna talk about it?"

He doesn't respond in any way at first, making her think he's not going to. Usually, he doesn't get stuff off his chest. He has a drink and a smoke, or sex and a smoke, or a drive-by and half a pack of smokes, and since none of that requires talking about feelings, she's always up for whatever takes his mind off things. Always there to share his unhealthy coping mechanisms.

"It's you," he finally says. "You keep dying and there's nothin' I can do about it."

"Okay, well, at least tell me I die in a cool way, and not by slippin' in the shower, or accidentally gettin' a cork smashed through my eye while poppin' a champagne bottle?"

"It's more of a watchin' you get skinned alive type of situation," he replies. His jaw tightens as the images left from his dream still flash in his mind. Losing her skin is the least gruesome act she's gone through in his nightmares.

"So, more gory than cool."

"Yeah."

"They're just dreams. They ain't real."

"I know that."

"Then you should know nothing's gonna happen to me. Hell, they sure tried hard on that boat. Everyone else died, except me." She pauses. Presses her nose to his shoulder to hide her face. He knows it all, he knows what happened, but sometimes, she has to remind herself. "God's gonna have to try kill me twice, and I put heavy emphasis on 'try,' you know."

"You know you're jinxin' it, right?"

"Maybe a bit," she says with a little grin as she nuzzles her nose to the side of his neck.

"I won't let anythin' happen to you."

She shifts behind him. He sounds grim and distant; whatever his subconscious showed him must really bother him. "Johnny..."

"I mean it," he says, ignoring the tone of her voice. "I'll die before I let you get hurt."

"Don't say that." She pulls back, wrapping her arms around herself, instead. It's one of the things she never wants to think about — Johnny dying. It's bad enough to think about him leaving. After what happened to Aisha, there was a point when she thought that their friendship was fading, that he was slipping away from her, that he would take off and never come back. It was hard accepting how much she wanted him to stay, to be a part of her life. "I don't want you dying for me."

"I would, though."

"You wanna be alone?" She asks, staring at his back. She can't think of anything else to say. Anxiety has its sharp fingers wrapped around her throat, ready to strangle the life out of her, but at the same time, she can feel her heart swelling in her chest over Johnny's words.

"No," he says quickly as he reaches behind him to grab a hold of her hands. Her fingers clasp around his palms. Now would be the time to tell her that he needs her, that he's felt that way for a while. Quite a long a time, actually. He's only ever really needed himself, so he's never said it to anyone, and he can't say it now, either. Knowing her, it could scare her away.

Doris wraps her arms back slowly around his bare chest and leans her cheek against the nape of his neck. She holds him tight for a few seconds as she tries to recall the article she flipped through in a magazine about comforting other people a while back. She's too drunk to remember. Shit. "You wanna stay up and watch TV, or somethin'?" She asks.

"You need to sleep off all that vodka and coke," he replies. "You got a big day tomorrow."

She chuckles. She's not looking forward to the meeting she has scheduled with Ultor in the morning, which is why she got so drunk in the first place. "You think I'm gonna be sober around a bunch of people I'd rather stab?"

"Yeah." He nods. "You're gonna be sober and you're gonna be the powerful, intelligent businesswoman you are, and show 'em that you ain't messin' around. If Gryphon gives you shit, you snap him in half. You're gonna come out of that meetin' with the contract you want. Then we can celebrate."

She kisses his shoulder as a silent thank you for the pep talk, and he relaxes a little. She's depressed, he's always seen it in her, buried deep down under all the exaggerated anger, pettiness, vanity, and her constant search for distraction in substances, people, violence; anything strong enough to numb her mind for a few hours. That's what he is to her — a distraction. That's what they are to each other, and he doesn't mind, as the arrangement certainly has its perks. He supports her in whatever she wants to happen next, in whatever could take her mind off the things that haunt her, in whatever could help make her less depressed. She achieved everything she went to war for. She's feared, but now she wants to be adored by the public, and he just wants her to be happy. He wonders if she ever will be.

" _We_ can celebrate?" She asks, and he can feel her smiling against his neck. A few seconds of happiness. "It sounds like I'm gonna be the one doing all the work."

"Well, you know how I just like to lie there," he replies, making her giggle. Her chest vibrates against his back. It's two more seconds of happiness under her ribs.

She presses her lips to his neck by the hairline. She's trying to suppress the affection she feels for him that moment, but she's not being very successful. Shivers run down his spine when she speaks. "Let's go back to sleep, baby-boy."

"Yeah."

She moves back to her side of the bed to give him room, waiting for him to lay down on his back. She leans her arms on his chest and her chin on the back of her hand. Her hair falls over her shoulders, lightly tickling his skin. Even without his glasses on, he can see her eyes twinkling.

"You wanna be the little spoon?" She asks with a subtle grin adoring her face.

"Yo, don't say it like that."

"Why?"

"I ain't a spoon to begin with," he says. "I'm a knife."

She snickers. "Come on, everyone wants to be little spoon. Ain't no shame in that."

He sighs and rolls to his side, facing away from her. "Fine. Spoon me."

She lets out another drunken giggle, amused over how easily he gave in, and she settles down flat against his back. She likes to wrap her legs around his and press her face between his shoulder blades, breathing in his scent. His skin is always soft there. She also likes to think that she's the only one who knows that about him.

Johnny can't fall back asleep, but he doesn't mind just resting there as Doris sleeps, feeling her slow breath on his skin. It's her apartment, but he feels at home. Around her, he doesn't have to be anything he's not. He doesn't have to adapt, or adjust, or change. He doesn't have to pretend. She offers him a sense of calmness he's never had before. He's decided to hold onto it, no matter what, as long as she lets him. She's the distraction he needs, the distraction he wants to have around in his life. She may even be the distraction he wants to keep only for himself.

 

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End file.
